by John Gardner
“Men are not exactly the meaning of every woman’s existence,” she said. She spoke mainly to the farther wall, the clock. When he said nothing she continued, turning back to him, “Are you aware that before this present civilization, women ruled the world for centuries?”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Craine said. At last the waitress acknowledged his eye. When she was near enough to hear him, he said, “Two coffees.” Then, to Elaine, not looking at her directly: “You’ll have coffee?”
She shrugged irritably. “I guess.” This time she dabbed at her tears openly and sniffed.
“Two coffees?” the waitress said, mainly to Elaine. Craine nodded. The waitress hesitated a moment longer, then left.
“It’s true,” Elaine said. She took a breath, getting control of herself. “When Caesar fought in Gaul, most of the generals who fought against him were women. Society was matriarchal. You know what I mean? For thousands of years it was the Mother Goddess that ruled everything. Look at Stonehenge. It’s a circle, right? And those tumps in Ireland and Wales, or wherever.” She looked up at him. “You know what tumps are?”
“Not offhand.” Craine sipped his Scotch, eyes lowered.
“They’re very ancient.” Her voice became teacherish. “We studied them in anthropology. They’re these man-made hills, they have a door facing east, at least some of them do.” She remembered her paper napkin and used that on her tears. She had herself in hand now. She wadded the paper napkin, then changed her mind, smoothed it out, and folded it. “At dawn on the day of the winter solstice,” she said, “the sun’s first light goes in through the door and down this long shaft and hits a sort of target that’s carved in the rock, a sort of spiral, you know what I mean?” With the index finger of her right hand she showed a flow of light into the palm of her left. He was increasingly surprised by the length and quickness of her fingers.
“Hmm,” Craine said and nodded, still looking at her hands.
“Other places in the tumps there are these ledges with bones on them, human skeletons. They’re burial places. There are spirals there too. Anthropologists think they have something to do with rivers. Eddies rippling out, something like that.” With her fingers she made eddies.
“I see,” Craine said.
“Personally, I think they’re mistaken, they’ve missed the whole point.” She shook her hands indignantly, palms toward her face, then, as if her gesture had startled her, looked at her fingertips.
The waitress came bringing the coffee. Elaine sniffed, then leaned left, talking around the waitress.
“One of the tumps is a model of a huge, you know—” She thought a moment. Her hands shaped an upended bowl. “Womb. Made of different kinds of sand? It’s at Salisbury, I think. So that proves it, they were worshippers of the Mother Goddess. The pyramids were probably the same—that’s what I think—only geometrical, which means modified by the male principle—the left lobe, things like that. The tumps were much earlier. I think the spirals represented, you know—the female.”
Craine nodded, cheeks tensed by his effort to let none of it slip past him, since she was speaking very fast.
“Can I tell you something else?” she asked, clasping her hands. She flashed panic.
Craine hesitated for an instant, put his hand around his glass, then nodded. He remembered his coffee and decided to measure in sugar, then Scotch. She seemed to have forgotten hers completely.
“For some of the tumps, and for the rings—like Stonehenge—they dragged the stones overland for hundreds of miles. According to this one book, by someone named Thorn or something, all the stone rings are built to the same measure, which means they were all built by this one civilization, from the Arctic Circle clear down to the Gaza Strip. There was once a ring of stones there called the Giant Bed of Og. It’s in the Bible. So their civilization—this one huge civilization—lasted hundreds and hundreds of years, and they must have had practically no wars, you know what I mean? Otherwise they couldn’t have done it.”
“Interesting,” Craine said again. He pushed the sugar across to her. She gave a little jump, as if the sugar bowl might bite, then recognized what it was and hurriedly spooned sugar into her coffee, then poured in cream, talking:
“Hundreds and hundreds of years without war, and then all of a sudden you get the Father God, gods like Zeus and Jehovah—” She glanced suspiciously at the cream.
“I don’t know,” Craine said.
“What?” she said, startled, jumping as if he’d spit.
He pursed his lips, brazenly filled his whole glass with Scotch. It was strange, all right—not even Craine could deny it—sitting here arguing antiquities with a client, a female client at that, in fact a child, and a slightly crazy one. The unusual midmorning heaviness had come to his eyelids, though it was not yet midmorning, and he was beginning to feel the usual pleasant relaxation of mental faculties. Sounds around him—talk, the clank of dishes, the tractor trailer going by outside the window—were beginning to take on the usual faintly electronic ring. “Slow down, my friend,” he told himself, but raised his glass and, in cheerful self-defiance, drank. As if drunkenness had come on him in one sudden chop, his eyes narrowed, his smile became superior and snaky. He was beginning to act. “Maybe your Mother Goddess did her work too well.”
“What?” she said.
“Pressure of population. Isn’t that what brought on wars?” He saluted with his glass, took a sip, set it down. “I don’t know about tumps—that one’s slipped by me. But I know about spirals.” He moved his hand over to the Scotch-coffee and raised it for a sip, looking over the rim of the cup at her. “You know how it is in the detection business. You try to stay on top of things. You never know what piece of out-of-the-way information will come in handy.” He wasn’t so drunk as not to know that the lie was ludicrous, but he enjoyed it. “Spiral’s pretty often a snake symbol. India, Sumeria—” He glanced away. Sumer? “Coiled snake,” he said. “Think about it.”
She was looking at her watch, where her eyes had fled from his glass and cup. Her eyebrows rose. No doubt she’d missed her class. But she said, “What do you mean?”
“Snake’s a male symbol,” Craine explained, as superior in his knowledge as the girl had been, earlier. “Probably as much the way he moves as his shape.” He leaned toward her. “But coiled, he makes a circle. That’s a female symbol. And then there’s the matter of the light ray that penetrates the shaft—the shaft in the tump.”
Her eyes widened more. “Are you crazy?” she said.
“What’s so crazy?” he said. He rolled his palms out, Jewish. “You think female can exist without male?”
“Jesus,” she said, looking at her watch again. “I’ve missed my class.”
“I’m sorry,” Craine said, flustered. He drained his cup, then looked around for the waitress to get the check.
Elaine was staring at him, her face—her whole head—grown smaller. “How come you know all this?”
“I had an aunt,” he said. He raised his hand to catch the waitress’s attention. “Also I read books. I’ll tell you something else about spirals—” The waitress chose to see him and nodded, queenly. “The universe is a spiral. The ancient Indians knew it.”
“It’s not!” she said, indignant. “What do you mean? How come?”
He knew for sure now how Elaine was in class. He could see her in third grade, nodding eagerly, shooting her hand up, flashing her furious, black-eyed glances at fools who thought six threes were twelve.
“Shoot a beam of light from anywhere,” Craine said, “it will curve around with space and come back to where it started—right?” She nodded, but guardedly. He jerked forward. “Wrong! Because the universe is expanding!”
“Hey!” she said. He saw her making speed-of-light connections: sex, funeral tumps, sperm-light, Stonehenge as observatory, the spiralling universe. “Hey!” she said, half out of her seat.
Craine laughed—in fact cackled—and glanced around to see who’d noticed.
Ice went up his back and made his neck hair rise. At the cash register, carefully not looking at them, stood a handsome, clean-shaven, sullen young man in a satiny blue and white runner’s jacket.
“Hannah,” he said, bent forward, shielding the telephone mouthpiece with his hand, “get me a trace on this license. Belongs to an old red Volkswagen—college boy, looks like. Maybe graduate assistant, otherwise a sneak; he’s got a faculty sticker on his windshield. Get me everything you can on him.” He gave her the number.
When she’d read it back, double-checking, she said, “Craine?”
“No time for chitchat, Hannah.”
The world had come alive, alive past all denying, this time—exactly as if a cadaver had suddenly opened its eyes, slightly startled, then grinned. He understood, of course, that it was only himself that had come alive; nothing had changed in the smooth, rich blacktop of the parking lot, the car rear ends lined up gleaming across from the window where Craine stood peering out. He understood too that it was what he would call, in another mood, illusion: the girl had switched on his denial-of-death machine—maybe had switched it on days ago; maybe that was why suddenly he was remembering things, his grandfather, Aunt Harriet, his childhood pleasure in prowling after dark. It was not, he sensed, an idea he’d be wise to pursue—such questions as: What was it about her, a girl not much more than a third his age, that had snapped Craine out of whatever he’d been in, headlong dive toward oblivion, withdrawal toward divinity and death. No need to ask; he knew the answers in advance. The twists of the miserable human psyche were his business. Anyway, such sober-minded questions were irrelevant, like the discouraging facts of aerodynamics to a bumblebee. It was stupid, no denying it, this excitement he’d finally quit fighting, allowed to take him over: Tarzan arm-wrestling elephants for Jane. Worse, in fact, if you looked at the thing cold-bloodedly: a sick, maybe dying alcoholic detective living in a town where a mass murderer was loose, the detective in possession of information that might possibly throw light on the murders but taking no time to get word to the police, throwing himself wholeheartedly into the fantasy of a half-crazy girl, betting all he had on her … Well, no news. When was the denial-of-death machine not shameless?
“Craine, don’t hang up,” Hannah said. “Did McClaren get hold of you yet?”
Elaine Glass was coming from the cash register now, where she’d collected his change. She looked no less flustered, no less panic-stricken, than when he’d given her the check and the money, telling her he had to go, call of nature. “Mr. Craine!” she’d cried out; but he’d had no time to take pity on her; had to see where that kind in the runner’s jacket went, what car he drove, if any. Now Elaine was looking to left and right, perhaps afraid Craine had skipped out on her. He said into the mouthpiece, speaking more quickly now, turning his back to Elaine, “Put Meakins on it, Hannah. I wanna know how many times a day that boy pisses.”
“Did you hear what I said, Craine?” Hannah asked. “McClaren’s been burning up the telephone. He says to tell you it’s urgent.”
“Of course I heard you.”
There was a brief hesitation. “You drunk again, Craine?”
“Not me, sister!” He grinned. On reflection he saw that he was, yes, drearily drunk again already, but sober enough to be annoyed by it—he could be downright furious, if he let himself—and annoyed by his own theatrics. “Tell you when I get in,” he said. “Any word on Carnac?”
“He’s come to,” Hannah said. “McClaren mentioned it.”
“Does he know who beat him up?”
“He says St. Cyril.”
“Jesus.” Craine slightly turned, peeking past his shoulder, making sure Elaine Glass was still there.
“You know the man?” Hannah asked.
“Died a long time ago,” Craine said, brusque. “Martyred some Egyptian witch, if I’m not mistaken—alchemist, mathematician; I forget.”
“You think it means anything?”
“Not likely. Listen, why don’t you see if you can talk to him. Maybe with you—”
“You think we should get involved, Craine? McClaren said—”
“We are involved, or anyway I am. They dumped him on my doorstep.”
“Dumped him?”
“Tell you about it later,” he said. Then: “Hannah?” He glanced in Elaine’s direction. She’d seen him now and was coming toward the phone booth, her face slightly puzzled, maybe hurt. “Hannah,” Craine said, “what happened to that Bible I had? White one—you know the one I mean?” As he spoke of the Bible a kind of tingle went through him, premonition of the terrible white flash. DT’s, yes, he knew that; but what did it mean? A sober man—a doctor, an analyst—could explain the thing till hell froze over. Thanatos-fixated; unresolved conflict of blood in the toilet bowl and his aunt’s sweet face singing hymns. Yes, true, all true. Nevertheless, maybe he was onto something—that was how it felt—one foot in an alien universe, territory of devils, old, sleeping gods.
When his mind came back, Hannah was saying, “It’s here. I brought it from Denhams’. What you want with it?” He strained to pay attention. He could see her squinting at the phone, perplexed.
“ ’Fraid I lost it, that’s all. Wanna know how it comes out. Listen.” He glanced at Elaine again. Another tingle, premonition, whiff of blood. She stood turned away from him, hands in her coat pockets, waiting. His mind raced, lost, then dug in. “Hannah, see if you can find me a book about tumps.”
“Tumps, Cramer”
He spelled it for her.
“Why in the world—”
“Never mind, just see if you can find one. Royce all right this morning?”
“He didn’t come in. Craine, what’s got into you, askin about Royce? Where you phonin from?”
“Tell him to take the day off if he comes in. Tell him I’m raising his salary.”
“You are drunk. Listen, you see Royce you stay clear of him, hear me?” When he said nothing she insisted, “Craine? You hear me what I’m telling you?”
“Gotta go,” he said. Excitement leaped in him—no reason he could think of. “Keep an eye out for sin.”
Outside the phone booth, as Elaine Glass turned to him, he said loudly, heartily, “Sorry. I remembered I’d better call my office.”
She nodded, breaking in at once with how much everything had cost, how much she’d tipped, how much change she’d been given, as if scared to death she might have gotten something wrong or he might think she’d embezzled; then at last she counted the change out carefully into his hand. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s fine! Take it easy!” He checked automatically to see that he had his pipe, tobacco, whiskey.
When they were seated in the cab of the truck she said, “Funny-looking sky.” She hunched forward to look up under the visor.
Craine hunched in the same way, starting up the engine. The clouds were high and fast, the sky a sickly yellow, almost green. “Storm on its way,” he said, and nodded. He backed out carefully, both hands on the wheel, shifted, and drove to the exit and out onto the street. He felt the tingle coming, and concentrated. It faded back.
“I hate storms,” she said. She was sitting with her shoulders against the plastic of the seat back. She pursed her lips as if thinking deeply. “I’m scared to death of them.”
“Oh, no need to worry about storms,” he said. The air had gotten still warmer, hot as a cow’s breath.
She turned her head sharply to look at him, eyes wide with indignation. “Are you kidding? If a tornado hits your house, that’s it!”
“It won’t,” he said. “I’ve been living here—”
“They say one hit Murphysboro and blew half the town away.” She reached out to the dashboard with her right hand as if to brace herself.
“That was years ago,” Craine said.
She turned her face forward, still bracing herself, thinking about it. “Jesus,” she said, and then: “I feel naushus.” Her face was gray.
Ahead of him, the railroad gate went down an
d he slowed, then, thirty feet back from the gate, eased the brake on. It was odd how carefully her presence made him drive. Normally, give him a whiskey or two and it was every dog and cat for himself. As the switch engine slid into view he said, “Elaine, how many people did you tell about the man in the blue and white runner’s clothes?”
Again she turned sharply. “Nobody,” she said, then frowned and turned her face forward once more. “I wrote a paper about it in advanced composition. I guess the teacher read it in class.”
“You guess?”
“He did, I mean.” She nodded. Abruptly, her mouth fell open and she jerked her face around to stare. “You believe me! You saw him! That’s why you called your office!”
“I didn’t say that,” he said. A semi pulled up behind them, brakes hissing.
She wasn’t fooled for a moment—no dolt, this girl, he was beginning to see. But then, Gerald Craine was no dolt either, no beginner, he told himself, sitting with a wry smile, watching the switch engine slide back out of sight. He hung weightless an instant, waiting for the tiny electric tingle. He saw he must somehow get his mind much clearer and, with an effort, did so, like an optometrist snapping on a lens that brings the eye chart to focus. “It must be a terrible thing,” he said—an ironic drawl—“to live your whole life in a state of wild panic.” He didn’t need to glance at her to know that the gentle attack had distracted her. “Afraid of tornadoes a month after the season for ’em, afraid of restaurants, afraid of phantoms wearing blue and white clothes any fool can get from Sears if he’s got twenty-four dollars. Afraid of detectives, afraid of men…” The gate went up. He eased carefully forward, crossed the tracks, and turned left onto University, heading for Church, then Ash. “You ever try living with a man, Elaine?”